A recent study showed that more than 70% of leaders now manage teams spread across multiple locations.
Hybrid, remote, global: the structures are looser than ever. And many leaders quietly admit that it’s lonely. The container that organisations once provided – a place to belong, to build identity and community – has thinned.
I hear it often in coaching conversations, “I’m running faster than ever, but I don’t feel connected to anyone.”
It shows up in small ways: the fatigue of endless virtual calls; the fact that new managers no longer “absorb” how leadership looks in practice because there’s less chance to sit in the room and observe; the feeling of projects accelerating but never really settling.
Teams assemble and dissolve across borders and time zones; colleagues join from kitchen tables or airport lounges.
The rhythm of working life is faster, but also more fragmented.
The vanishing organisation
Nearly twenty years ago, Andrew Cooper and Tim Dartington wrote about the vanishing organisation, describing the disintegration of stable, bureaucratic models and the rise of networked, ephemeral ones. They foresaw what many of us now experience: that “identity is becoming the main, sometimes the only, source of meaning” in a world of unstable institutions.
The language may sound abstract, but the reality is concrete. Organisations used to hold more of the psychological weight for people as containers of belonging and loyalty; today, those ties have loosened.
The weakening container
When the organisational frame weakens, people carry more of the weight themselves. Leaders in particular are not just managing tasks and outcomes, but also trying to hold together communities that are dispersed and fragile.
The toll is real: isolation, burnout, and a constant sense of flux. I notice it most in the way leaders talk about pressure – not the pressure of targets themselves, but the absence of a stable base from which to meet them.
There’s also an erosion of trust. Without a shared sense of culture, missteps are amplified. Without informal contact, misunderstandings linger. And without visible leadership presence, loyalty to the organisation as a whole weakens.
We’re also seeing the shift in how people approach their careers.
The “job for life” is gone. Many younger leaders think in terms of portfolio careers – building experiences and skills they can take with them, rather than tying identity to one employer.
Organisations, once the anchor of identity and belonging, are now more often experienced as temporary hosts.
Why leadership development matters
This is one reason organisations are turning to leadership development with renewed urgency. Not as a tick-box training exercise, but as a way of deliberately creating spaces where senior people can connect, think together, and rebuild some of the community that has been lost.
The payoff is tangible. Leaders come away with sharper strategy, stronger commercial acumen, more confident behaviours; but also with the peer networks that make those things stick. It’s the combination of capability and connection that drives not only resilience in individuals, but cohesion at the top of the system.
Two programs, one theme
The CEO Accelerator Program we ran with Vodafone brought together chief executives across markets.
On the surface it was about accelerating performance in critical regions, but just as important was the peer community forged through action learning, coaching, and shared experiences – including an intensive module in Cairo. The result was a group of leaders better equipped to deliver commercially, and also connected enough to sustain each other across geographies.
The Ignite Program, designed for the next generation of senior leaders, combined formal learning on strategy and customer centricity with peer-to-peer coaching, market visits, shadowing, and immersive workshops.
Leaders left with the skills to deliver in demanding contexts, and with something just as valuable: a network they could draw on when the pressure spiked.
Different levels, different contexts, but the same outcome: stronger leaders, and leadership communities that don’t vanish when the program ends.
Holding the center
We can’t bring back the stable organisations of the past (nor should we).
But we can help leaders recreate some of what has been lost – connection, acknowledgement, and community – while also equipping them with the skills to thrive in today’s demanding contexts.
The vanishing organisation is not just a concept in a book; it’s the lived experience of leaders today.
The question is how we respond: do we let fragility become the defining feature of modern organisations, or do we create the spaces where leaders can hold steady, together, in the face of it?
Interested in working together to build leadership capability and community?
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